Ten things I want to do

1. Go to the three best traveling spot in Japan 2. Go to a really good Onsen(hot spring) 3. Go to the North east Japan for volunteering 4. Join a club (a easy going sport club) in ICU 5. Find a part time job that gives me learning and satisfaction 6. Clean my room 7. Find a partner 8. Read "Les Miserable" 9. Read more novels 10. Go to the Chofu stadium and cheer for F.C. Tokyo These are the ten things that I want to do. Doing these will help me make my life a lot more enjoyable, so I would like them to come true.

The Reason I Study

I study because it will help me to know things better, understand things that I have not know before. University academics is, for me, a chance to discover what I really know for myself, which is in a sense something to do with the unavoidable curiosity within myself. I do get tired sometimes, especially at the end of the term, but I really hope to finish what I have started and get to a higher point of understanding on the topic after the term. That is why I spend a lot of energy in studying and putting the priority first. I am sleepy, tired, and lazy, but I really want to fight this fatigue and accomplish my goal in academics this term.

Weekend in Jindaiji

I spent my last Saturday going to Jindaiji. It was really great to be there when the leaves on the trees are colorful and starting to fall down which make me feel that the season is now autumn. I ate Soba at one of the shops there, and while I waited, I read the starting line of Basho's "Okunohosomichi". When I finished eating, I went out of the shop and went for a walk to where all the temples are, walking along the old fashioned street, the main feature of Jindaiji. I went up the stares of the street and entered a botanical park there. It cost me 500 yen. I thought it was a bit expensive for me to pay, but it was actually really nice being there with so many kinds of plants and trees in one of the best seasons in the year. I breathed the clean air, pondered on many thoughts as I walked, ate some ice cream, and out of all, I really enjoyed the nature. In the end, I thought it was worth the price. I went out of the park, and got some baked sweet potato and went home. It was a great way to spend my weekend.

How was SE? What did I learn/discover during this course?

I think I got a lot familiar with writing my thoughts freely in English. Before, I think I would have rather chosen to write my thoughts in Japanese, but now I think I can do the same in English. I even realized that there are feelings that are easier to express in English. I think my thoughts and feelings have become more closely attached to English thought process through this course. I also got used to using a blog. I had the experience of using a blog before, but I had never tried one as a blog owner. In this class, I had to run my own blog, and I was the one fully responsible for posting blog articles to proceed my blog. So I think it has become a good experience that might be useful in the future. Finally, I think out of all, the greatest thing I might have learned from this course is to write about myself in whatever way it feels comfortable for me. It is great to show a writing to other people, but first, writing is for yourself. This means that you don't really need to be so curious what other people may look at it. Writing is first for your own pleasure and to understand yourself better. Publishing is a different step, but I think writing something that you really want to write will eventually result to something that other people also find a value. These are the three things I learned from this class.

ICU Fes Symposium "Differences between the new dorms and the old dorms on ICU campus"

I participated in a symposium about "the difference between new dorms and old dorms in ICU campus" during the ICU festival. There were one panelist from each dorms to discuss with each other on the difference between the old and the new, and I participated as a representative from the 2nd Men's Dormitory. The discussion was mainly about the problem of 2 years system or 4 years system. In the current system, the residents in the new dorms can only stay at the dorm for 2 years, but in the old dorms, residents can live there for four years (basically until they graduate). There are merits and demerits for each system. If you can stay at one dorm for four years, there will be interaction with many generations, either elder or younger, and the residents get to learn a lot from that kind hybrid dorm. In 2 years system, you will have more interaction with peers in your same grade, but you will have less time to build up relationships, traditions within the dorm, and etc. It is required to look at this issue from many perspectives in making a decision of what kind of system to apply to the new dorms that ICU is planning to build in the future. I thought it was a really important issued since I am getting a lot out of living in a dorm, and I personally think whether or not the dorm is 2 years system or 4 years system makes a whole lot of difference.

Midnight City

Reading Reflections on "The Anointed" by Dr. Kathleen Hill

I've read "The Anointed"written by Dr. Kathleen Hill

It is the short story that she introduced to us in our class.

As she explained to us, the story was about a boy, Norman, whose father eventually commits suicide. The main character observes Norman, at school, mainly in music class, and also at her aunts house neighborhood, where Norman often came to visit his father who never responded to his visits.

It was really interesting to me, the way Miss Hughes was depicted in the story. The descriptions on various expression that she bears on her face made me really think of what she would be like if she were in front of me. "The silent mask"really made me think of what was really inside her mind, when she assumed that on her face. 

Norman was also really interesting to me, although I could hardly grasp what kind of person he really is, reading the story.  I also wondered what has happened already to Norman and his family at the point where the story started since, aside from his father, his mother never appeared in the story.

There are many factors in the story, that made me really curious about, at the same time I also enjoyed the uncertainty, or the mystery there. I also played the music as I read the story and it was the most fascinating thing to listen and read the depiction of the piece at the same time. I also thought it was wonderful to feel the dynamics of music contributing to the development of the story bringing me to a much closer sense of actually being there.

I found Miss Hughes comment on Mozart's Lacrimosa at the end of the story really interesting.

"If you listen closely, I know you cannot fail to hear something else: the tale of how our grief; the desire for what we do not have, the desire for what is forever denied us, may at length—when embraced as our destiny—become indistinguishable from our joy."

I found this comment really profound and pondered over what this really means to Norman, or further to myself.

The story ends, but there remains the uncertainty. What was the expression on Normans face that nobody has seen before, that looks into "the eternity"? 

"What has happened to him after that?" 

I think the latter one might be the feeling that Ms. Hill was talking about in our class, why she started to write this story. I thought, what Ms. Hill tried to do through writing this was not to create Norman's story that followed the incident, but a retrospective, creative, re-construction of her memory she had with Norman and her surrounding environment during that time of her age.

I would like to thank Ms. Hill for giving me this opportunity to read her story and,

If I have any chance sharing my thoughts with you on this, that would be most wonderful.

What is my view on religion?

Religion is something that makes me really passionate about.
Religion is something that deals with the unknown dimension of the world.
People belong to all sorts of religions. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism are the main ones, but there are many many other religions around the world, large or small, and even within the main religions I listed above, there are a whole bunch of  different denominations. Ofcourse, in the modern day, we can not overlook the rise of Atheism, claiming the non-existence of any deity, or doubting the role of religion itself for humans.
I find it really interesting, because studying it is kind of grasping what you can not really grasp, but there certainly is a profound human interest to it (even including the fact that Atheists have to actively advocate the meaninglessness of religion), and the human history has been shaped by the role of religion.

I have a lot more to say about this, but I will sum up...
It is what gave me the motivation to come to university, and I'm thankful that there is this kind of study field in the world.

My favorite poem by 石川啄木 (Ishikawa Takuboku)

何がなしに 頭のなかに崖ありて 日毎に土のくづるるごとし ー石川啄木

Eng. Trans.

I feel like
There is a cliff inside my head and
Everyday, land sliding down from it

-Ishikawa Takuboku

This poem represents how I sometimes feel about myself, continuing to think, think, think but end up running into a corner, where I can't find a resolution anymore. I don't have this feeling right now, but when I first read it, I thought Takuboku had described the feeling so realistically, that I felt it is what was exactly happening in my mind at that time. I enjoy reading poems when I find verses that describes what I thought was indescribable being successfully put into words. I feel that poems might be the easiest form for me to describe my own feelings as well.

What does "love" mean to me

I don't like to use the word. It is absolutely necessary for my life but I don't think I want to express how I feel about it. To do that, I think I have to start talking about things in my life, my view on God and my relationship with people. It is a difficult thing for me.

Jim Johns' Peoples Temple Church

"The largest mass suicide in the modern history" This is what is known to be the tragic end of a new religion that arised in Indiana, US in the 1970s. I watched a documentary on this in my religious studies class. This whole movie was shocking since a religious group, supposedly dedicated for the well being of people, ended up forcing the believers to inject poison into their children, wifes, and to themselves and resulted to 900 mass suicide. This new religious group, called People's Temple Church was led by a charismatic leader, Jim Johns, who aimed to make an utopia, with an ideal of interacial, socialistic community. They started off from simple church organization, but they later began a whole group inplantation to Guyana, where all the believers worked together to make a self-sufficient community there. But the group started to seem wrong as the leader Johns began to lose members. He started to force people not to leave and in the end, made his followers drink poison all at once saying "if we cannot live in peace, let us die in peace". This documentary made me really uncomfortable, because seeing a sane community eventually become an insane community was done in a process of people's mind being controlled. "Cult grounps" have always existed through out the history, but when religion is misused, this could cause a very serious problem. This is what I learned from watching this documentary.

What is "happiness" to me?

This word does not have so much meaning to me, since word "happiness" does not totally explain what I want to do with my life. Sure I would like to remain happy as long as I can, but it is just not the ultimate goal in my life. I would rather use the word "interest"instead to explain my goal in life. My goal in life is to fulfill my role as a person who is interesting to himself, and who keeps on pursuing his curiosity. As long as I live, I will keep on changing and do things that people never think of, and hopefully, contribute to the world in some way through that way of living. If I stop being interesting to myself, I don't think I have my reason for living anymore. I do not want to be unhappy, but when it is necessary, I will take it. Happiness is not the primary issue in my life. The most important thing is, if I can be an interesting person to myself or not. Therefore, happiness is only a side factor in my life.

A Thought on Loneliness

Which person is stronger? A person who knows how avoid being lonely or, A person who can bear being lonely. I think the latter. But I think that that kind of person had never existed. Avoiding loneliness is the best a person can do to fight it. Since it is deep and immense as the sea. It is not something that a human being should dare challenge. Because it will easily overwhelm you kill your existence. As Aristotle once said "Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human." This can be said the other way around. Human cannot, by nature, live alone. Therefore, being a strong person is not about an unrealistic image of a person who can bear loneliness, but a humanistic and realistic person who interacts with people to avoid being lonely.

My Greatest Strength and Weakness

I think my greatest strength is to be able to have a deep conversation with others. It could be a conversation with my friends, professors, or some one who I meet for the first time. In any occasions, I talk with them about my interests, or ask them what they are currently doing. This is a simple process, but this leads to a really good conversation, which gives both me and the person a great amount of learning from each others thoughts, and from the values each of us have. Having a dialogue with people acts as one of the primary ways for me to learn, and I think it has helped through out my life to develop my thoughts and also to grow up as an individual. My greatest weakness is that I am not very flexible at thinking and doing things. For example, I always tend to think that if I chose to do something in a certain way, I fix myself into it and never change it until I finish it. There are many many ways to deal with things, and many many options of doing things. The answer is not always one, and you can also change your views or ways to deal with things depending on the situation.But I hardly think about things this way. I also tend to not listen to people’s advises since I feel like I am being intruded by them the way I want to do things. This way of thinking often leads me to ineffective work process and I end up spending a lot of unnecessary efforts. I want to be able to listen to other people’s ideas more, think flexibly and deal with things more effectively.

My Favorite Movie "Babel"

My favorite movie is "Bable" directed by a Mexican film producer, Alehandro Gonzalez Inarritu. This movie portrays three different groups of people in three different countries interconnected to each other by an event caused by a gun. The main theme in this movie is about language, as the title shows. This movie also shows the relationships between a family. Even if there is a common language that you can speak to each other, communication never goes perfectly well between family members. What I like about this movie is that it makes me aware that there are many different people living totally different lives in many different places all on at the same time. The three countries in this movie are totally different culturally, yet they are all happening in the same time and are interconnected to each other. There is a lot going on than you can see in your home environment. This is what I learned from this movie.

What is the most precious thing in my life?

The most precious thing in my life is my family. I feel this way because they are the ones closest to me in the whole world. I have been with them since I was a baby, and they are deeply related to my childhood and how I grew up. There were times when we had great experience together, and also times when we went through really tough situation together. The feeling of trust and closeness coming from this years of shared experience are the reason why I think my family is the most precious for me in my life.

"My Favorite Things" Presentation Slides

What does it mean to be a "global citizen"

I think it requires you to have a several attributes to become a global citizen. First of all, I think you should be able to communicate through English to express your ideas. Second of all, I think it requires you to be open minded. That is to say, you need to be open to cultures different from yours and accept it. Thirdly, I think the most important out of all, is a mind to be able to position yourself in a world wide human community. It is hard to do this and often times it is necessary for you to voice your opinion from your home country’s position, however, it is also important to keep in mind that we are all part of the human race and we all share the responsibility for what we will build on to the human history. Those are the three attributes that I think is required for being a “global citizen”.

Who am I?

I am sand in the sea.

I am soil where trees grow upon.

I exist, but that is not for sure.

I will stop existing in the future, and that is for sure.
No one seeks any evidence. It is a belief.

I was composed to life and will be decomposed to end it.

By whom?

You may ask.

I do not know.
I do not find meaning in life.

Nor do I find meaning in searching for meaning in life.

A pleasant wind blows.

That is the reason why

I live my life.
I will go on

and on.

Do I like to write?

I really like writing about my own thoughts, for example writing diary, but I don't really like to write an academic paper. When I write just for my thoughts, it gives me pleasure, because verbalizing your own thoughts helps you to look back on yourself and helps you to understand yourself better. However, when you have to write an academic paper, it often requires you to do a lot of research and you can not really write your honest feelings. So whether I like writing or not depends on what type of writing it is.

Why did I decide to take this class?

I decided to take this class, because I wanted to think deeper about myself in order to understand myself more and know myself better. I have had a lot of rare experiences through out my life and I really want to look back to those memories and reconstruct my own personal history. By doing that I think I will be able to see my present self connected with the path that I have walked in the past self. In deciding my future careers and goals, I thought that taking this class could help me in doing this and that was my motivation for taking it.